Miguel Torres cut by UFC after Tweeting joke about rape

For the second time in as many days a UFC fighter has made light of sexual assault with the first instance involving Rashad Evans’ verbal jab at Phil Davis, a Penn State alumnus, about “putting hands” on him in reference to the university’s current scandal involving a football coach forcing himself on children enrolled in a program he headed for disadvantaged youth. Now Miguel Torres has followed suit with a joke referring to rape though he has apparently paid the ultimate price for it rather than receive a slap on the wrist like Evans.

According to multiple sources, Torres has been dropped by the UFC as a result of his insensitive humor and in the words of UFC President Dana White, “His career with us is over now.”

For the record, Torres’ Tweet in question read, “If a rape van was called a surprise van more women wouldn’t mind going for rides in them. Everyone like surprises.”

Though the outright termination of Torres’ contract seems harsh it appears a line in the sand has been drawn by UFC brass meaning fighters making future comments of a similar nature are likely headed down the same route as the former WEC bantamweight champ.

Such B.S. Aside from the fact that I am shocked that Dana has fallen into the PC cop garbage, Rashad’s comment was more tasteless but no punishment. Obviously this is something that comes with joining with a major network. This is going to annoy a core group of fans to appease potential fans.

Should Torres have been fired for telling a tasteless joke he obviously didn’t write? Probably not. Should he have been fired for telling it using a medium that the UFC is trying very hard to make synonymous with it’s brand of sport star? Maybe. Are people too fucking sensitive and tend to blow everything out of proportion when something is “offensive”? Absolutely.

At least Rashad’s comment was contextual and culturally relevant (i.e. it’s in the news). The shocker for Torres is tweeting out of the blue like this. I can see why Dana came down on one but not the other (notwithstanding the money match Rashad has after Phil Davis).

I agree that “the joke” was something that he copied and pasted into his Twitter account… I think the UFC gave up a good fighter. I enjoyed watching Angel and noone seems to be talking about that (ie. him being an MMA athlete) – which is the reason we watch the UFC.
Something seems fishy as this doesn’t seem like a Dana move. We’ve got guys like Rampage who Dana bails out of jail and can then fight – but Angel posts a joke and we go to immediate job termination instead of suspension. Even Leban will serve his drug suspension and then be allowed to compete (with open arms I bet).
So you can go to jail or cheat and be allowed to fight – however jokes are no laughing matter (yes it was tasteless I know).
Soon we’ll see a manditory dress code when coming and leaving the arena. Shirt, tie, dress jacket – bye bye promotion gear!

Complete mistake by Dana White-He really needs to get some consistency in his punishments-Miguel has been a great company guy and deserves the same respect that Sonnen,Leben,Rashad,Rampage,Forrest,Mir,Brock,Bisping,Sherk,Thiago Silva,etc. etc. have received

Miguel is a stand up guy, dumb thing to say and pretty out of character, not even particularly funny.
gutted for him, however, BFC have a huge oppurtunity here, Torres vs Pitbull/Reis/Dantas/Warren/Galvao/Makovsky will be awesome fights

I can see why some people would get upset with the joke but firing him over it? That is just complete bullshit.. I personally found it humorous, and knew right away where he got it from. Ive been a supporter of the majority of Dana’s rash decisions before, but not this one. Im a big Torres fan and have met him twice hes a nice guy, This is too harsh IMO

Don’t believe this is so much the “network”. This is all Dana and his strange brand of MMA justice. If Spider Silva would have tweeted the same exact thing, would he have received anymore than a stern scolding?? When it comes to this, there is no room for double-standards. It paints Dana White as an irrational fool.

My biggest problem with this is Forrest tweeted “Rape is the new missionary” just about a month or two ago. The things that got him fired for copying a joke on to twitter were; He was the most recent to make such an insensitive comment, he does not have as good of a relationship with the Zuffa Brass, and he is not as big of a draw as Forrest or Rashad.

This situation doesn’t surprise me at all. Zuffa has been getting flack recently for what their fighters have been saying to the public. Rashad kicked the proverbial hornets nest (thank you Lord Faust) earlier in the week and got it more in the public eye with what Jim Rome said on his show about him. Then Torres tweets the Always Sunny joke (at least thats where I think its from), and Dana can jump at the firing of a “name fighter”. Which he can now throw in his critics faces, who have been on the UFC for not punishing Forrest or Rashad.

Eventhough we all know Forrest and Rashad are both immensely more of draw then Torres is.

Personally, I think Torres should go to Japan. He’d easily be king there and with the UFCs push into the far east, he could establish himself as the local “top dog” thereby creating the impression with anti-Zuffites that he’s easily as good if not better than half the top 135ers that they try to push on the local crowd. See Aoki and Jorge Santiago for reference.

He picked up War Machine when his last fight in the UFC was over three years ago. Plus he’s not near the name Torres or Marquardt are.

Aoki dominated the rest of the world when 155 was still not apart of the UFC. He still basically does the same, eventhough there are only a few good guys left outside of Zuffa. 135 isn’t even a top tier division in the US, so him dominating unknown 135lbers in Asia won’t help.

He has to hope that he can get back into Zuffa’s good graces, which I give him a 50/50 shot at.

Still haven’t forgotten about you Torres-I can relate to you after watching how you act during your tequila incident-If you were an adult in the fifties, nobody would’ve even batted an eyelash off of what you posted-You are too good for Bellator and I believe that you are just now becoming the complete fighter that you can be-Find the balance-technical yet murderous